Henrico County farms to be featured on Virginia Farm Bureau Real Virginia program

This November, Virginia Farm Bureau’s Real Virginia television program will highlight Henrico County as part of its County Close-up segment.

The six-minute Henrico County Close-up segment will air this Saturday, Nov. 15 at 8 a.m. on FOX-Richmond, and be available on the Virginia Farm Bureau’s YouTube channel Nov. 28.

“Henrico County is like many Virginia counties that are in suburban and urban areas close to urban areas,” said Elijah Griles, a Virginia Farm Bureau video content creator. “It has a lot of agricultural diversity that's appealing to the population center that's nearby. Henrico is unique because it wraps around the city of Richmond.”

The Virginia Farm Bureau is a membership organization that supports farmers through legislative activities, professional development and insurance. The Real Virginia show educates the community about agriculture.

 “A lot of Henrico residents, myself included, know Henrico as a suburban and even partially urban county with lots of housing developments, lots of shopping, retail,” Griles said.  “But as soon as you start to get on the eastern side of the county past Interstate 95, it opens up into some open farmland, and that's a draw to a lot of people who might be riding the Virginia Capital Trail along Route 5 and enjoying passing fields of soybeans being cut with a combine or seeing cornfields and timberland. Henrico County has a lot of agricultural diversity.”

The County Close-up video segment features four farms in the eastern part of Henrico County engaged in producing diverse products – Bill Nelson’s Colonial Acres Farm in Varina; Steve Crouch’s Glendale Cattle Company by the Charles City line; Justin and Stephan Easterday’s Easterday Mushroom Company in Sandston; and Cappie and John Montgomery’s Fleur de Lis Farms in Varina.

Each month, the feature focuses on a different Virginia county and provides an in-depth look at the area from an agricultural perspective. Griles’ interviews with the local farmers explores the role agriculture plays in the county, which sectors are most prevalent and how the industry is changing.

In Henrico, there are currently about 7,900 acres being farmed as of the last census of agriculture, which is a 35% decrease from 2012 and a 20% decrease since 2017.

That most recent official count showed Henrico County had a total of 84 farms on 7,927 acres, and the market value of all agricultural products sold that year was nearly $7 million. Crops account for 98% of all farm income in the county, with the major plantings in soybeans, corn, wheat, hay, forage and vegetables. Commodities like livestock, poultry and other animal products make up the remaining 2%.

“Our goal with our real Virginia show, as well as all of our other content that we create is to pull back the curtain on agriculture here in Virginia and help the non-farming public connect with the communities that are sometimes surrounding them, that are growing the food, fiber and fuel that contribute to all of our lives here in the commonwealth as well as across the country and help people understand agriculture,” Griles said.

Griles, who grew up on a cattle farm outside of Blackstone, Virginia brings first-hand knowledge along with curiosity and empathy.

During the segment, the Henrico farmers also explain why they do what they do, amidst the challenges they face. For some of those featured, it’s a family tradition and a deep sense of responsibility to the land, to their neighbors, to their common man and to their family. Those with a legacy in farming have a motivation to continue doing what they learned to do as children and as young men and continue caring for the land as well as providing for their own families through these agricultural businesses.

“And then for folks like the Montgomerys or the Easterdays, there's a curiosity of ‘How do I help connect my neighbors, friends, and people in this community with food,’” Griles said. “The Easterdays told me that they had this fascination with mushrooms and had seen YouTube videos about people growing mushrooms and knew that they wanted to do something that was going to produce a product that would go directly to consumers. When they decided mushrooms was the way to go, they spent several years learning how to grow mushrooms and perfecting this art of growing mushrooms.” 

On the warm fall day that Griles filmed and interviewed at the Fleur de Lis farm, chickens roamed around the 16-acre property that produces vegetables.

The Montgomerys, who also operate the Dorey Park Farmers Market in Varina, sell pasture-raised pork and farm eggs. Cappie uses the farm fresh milk and cream from Richlands Dairy to produce fresh cheese and European-style butters. The Montgomerys were putting the cover crops to bed for the for the winter – melons, cucumbers, squash, field tomatoes and sweet potatoes.

During the taping, the couple told Griles about the logistics of running a small farm and aspects of farming that appeal to them. Starting the farmers market, they said, was important to facilitate sales of local products to the residents of Eastern Henrico and beyond.

“We're huge on food access programs,” said Cappie Montgomery. “We have a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program  or SNAP match program that's provided by Virginia Fresh match. And we also have a program that is unique to our market, where if someone comes to use their SNAP benefits at the market, we have a SNAP terminal and they swipe their card with us. We have a token system where we give them dollar tokens. Each token is worth a dollar, and they spend those with vendors at the market. We're very proud of that program.”

As Joins was trimming back the dahlias planted in rows, she spoke about what drew her to agricultural work.

“Farming, when I was younger, was born out of some prescient anxiety about infrastructure and supply chain,” Joins said. “I joked that I grew up in punk [do-it-yourself] culture, and this is a form of DIY. I'm figuring out a way to support myself, both growing food, but also connecting with nature and plants, it's more of like an intellectual pursuit because there's so much more novelty to me.”

Real Virginia airs nationwide at 4:30 p.m. on the first and third Saturdays of each month in the Voices of Agriculture program on RFD-TV on Dish Network and DirecTV, and on selected cable outlets around the state. It airs on the first and third Saturdays at 8 a.m. on WRLH Richmond and at 5:30 a.m. on WSLS Roanoke and weekly on WBRA digital channel 15.2, the WHRO World Channel, WVVA Bluefield and WTKR Norfolk; every Sunday at 11 a.m. on Blue Ridge PBS and PBS Appalachia; on the first and third Sundays of each month at 10 a.m. on WVIR Charlottesville and at 7 a.m. on WHSV Harrisonburg.

Watch Real Virginia anytime online at youtube.com/user/VirginiaFarmBureau.

Dina Weinstein is the Citizen’s community vitality reporter and a Report for America corps member, covering housing, health and transportation. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.